Kips Bay Show House 2012

The 40th Annual Kips Bay Show House recently opened in New York, which allows us the opportunity to take a peek at what A-list designers are up to and perhaps spot a few trends.

Whereas Kips usually secures a townhouse on the Upper East Side for the event, this year there was no townhouse for the taking and a bright new condo was used instead. This forced an element of contemporary architecture into the mix.

Trendsetters will notice a few fads that persist and inspire — lacquered walls, wallpapered ceilings, pattern on pattern and bespoke textured walls. But the purposes of color analysis, one thing stood out for me: green.

And I mean all manner of green. Chartreuse, Spring Pea, Moss, Green Slate and Emerald were all used either as stand-alone elements or in combination with other colors like Aubergine or Coral. I don't remember any of this from my color forecasting of last winter, so perhaps I'm behind the curve, though I'm delighted with the range in tone and mood it creates.